According to Francis, we all run the risk of becoming “Christians in appearance.” We are tempted, he said, to mediocrity, and when Christians become mediocre, “it is their ruin, because the heart cools and they become lukewarm.” Francis reminded his hearers that Jesus used strong language to describe this sort of Christians: “Because you are lukewarm, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” These, the Pope said, “are enemies of the cross of Christ. They take the name of Christian, but do not follow the requirements of the Christian life.”

The Pope suggested that there are questions we can ask ourselves to know what sort of Christians we are. He said that all of us—the Pope included—need to ask ourselves: “How much worldliness is in me? How much paganism?”

Even more specifically, the Pope asked: “Do I like to brag? Do I like money? Do I like my pride, my arrogance? Where are my roots, and where is my citizenship? In heaven or on earth?”

“If you love money and are attached to it, if you love vanity and pride, you are headed down a bad road,” he said. If, instead, he continued, “you try to love God and serve others, if you are gentle, if you are humble, if you are the servant of others, you are on the right path. Your citizenship is in heaven.”

A Day That Will Live in Glory

Pray for the Four Cardinals: Burke, Caffarra, Meiser and Brandmuller

“You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day."